Convicted Pow Reopens Wounds Of Vietnam War

July 09, 1993|By George de Lama, Chicago Tribune. Tribune researcher Lynne Marek contributed to this report from Washington.

LOS ANGELES — In March 1979, Marine Pfc. Robert Garwood emerged from 14 years of captivity in Vietnam, an unwelcome symbol of a conflict that still haunts many Americans.

His appearance caused an uproar: All other known American POWs had been released six years before. Might there be more?

But far from hailing him as a returning hero, the Marine Corps court-martialed Garwood for allegedly collaborating with the enemy, desertion, assault on a fellow prisoner and other charges.

Nearly two dozen ex-prisoners of war testified that Garwood had "gone native," becoming an officer in the North Vietnamese Army, carrying a rifle, living with his captors, coming and going as he pleased and guarding his fellow Americans from 1966 to 1969.

Garwood pleaded insanity. The judge dismissed most charges, but in 1981 Garwood was found guilty of collaboration and assault. He was the only American POW convicted for his conduct in captivity while in Vietman.

The case was a painful footnote to the Vietnam War, evoking some of the most wrenching elements of the conflict, particularly the persistent belief that some of the estimated 2,200 troops listed as "missing in action" were still alive, abandoned by their government.

Garwood was given a dishonorable discharge and tried to build a new life as an electronics repairman on the West Coast. But 12 years later, Garwood and his strange story won't go away.

Last week, ABC television broadcast a sympathetic made-for-TV movie about Garwood, depicting his version of the story: that he was a captive and that his conduct was driven by a desperate will to survive after he was traumatized by torture.

On Thursday, Garwood returned to the scene of his crimes and his nightmares, accompanying Sen. Robert Smith (R-N.H.) to Hanoi on a mission to find the sites where Garwood had testified that he saw Americans held when he left Vietnam in 1979.

Smith, a Vietnam veteran and vice chairman of a Senate select committee on POW-MIA issues, said he wants to follow up every lead, no matter how slim.

"What we're trying to do is confirm his credibility on the record," Smith told reporters upon arriving in Hanoi. "We're going to assess: Is Garwood right or is Garwood wrong?"

To some MIA activist groups, Garwood has become an unlikely champion. Ret. Navy Capt. Eugene "Red" McDaniel, a former POW and president of the American Defense Institute, a group active in MIA issues, is among those who believe Garwood was prosecuted and silenced because of his knowledge of POWs left behind.

"I am convinced they were on a mission, and they carried it out," McDaniel said of the Pentagon. "The mission was to discredit Garwood because Garwood had seen live American prisoners, because they all were officially supposed to be dead, so they set out to destroy Garwood."

But for many Vietnam veterans, Garwood's trip and the movie have opened old wounds. Several former POWs who testified against Garwood at his court-martial still voice anger at the ex-Marine and accuse him of cruelly manipulating well-intentioned people desperately clinging to the hope that Americans remain alive in Vietnam.

"I think about it all the time-just like it was yesterday," said Gustav Mehrer, 43, of Colorado Springs, a former POW who said Garwood tried to recruit him to join the North Vietnamese Army. "I won't forget and certainly won't forgive. That's something that you don't forgive. . . ."

David Harker, 47, of Forest, Va., was a POW for 5 1/2 years. Garwood's assault conviction was for striking Harker in the ribs. "Bobby Garwood's credibility is nothing," Harker said. " . . . I just think it's unbelievable that they're (taking) him to confront people he took sides with."

Like Harker, Army helicopter pilot Francis G. Anton was imprisoned in the camp where Garwood lived separately with their North Vietnamese captors and wore the NVA uniform. Anton, now 49, said he bears Garwood no ill will after all these years. But he doesn't believe a word Garwood says, either.

"It's pathetic. He's a hope for them (MIA activists). At this point they're groping at any hope," said Anton, now an American Airlines pilot who lives in Satellite Beach, Fla.

Like most known American POWs, Mehrer, Harker and Anton were released by North Vietnam in 1973. Garwood, captured in 1965, remained behind, working with the NVA until he approached a Scandinavian diplomat in 1979 for help in returning home.

Two weeks ago the renewed debate over Garwood exploded in acrimony on the floor of the Senate. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a POW in Vietnam for 5 1/2 years, assailed Garwood as a liar and traitor, denounced the TV movie as "a disgusting outrage" and railed at Smith for taking Garwood to Vietnam.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), like McCain a member of the Senate select committee on POW-MIA issues that found no evidence that any American prisoners are still alive in Vietnam, noted that Garwood waited at least five years after he left Vietnam before telling investigators he saw live American prisoners.